Notable Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoshio Harada, Keiko
Kishi, Ayumi Ishida, Makoto Fujita, Sonny Chiba, Isao Natsuyagi, Kayo Matsuo,
Ai Kanzaki, Tatsuo Umemiya, Hajime Hana, Tetsuro Tamba, Koji Takusho
It’s a simple shot, towards the end of Hideo Gosha’s
late-70s chanbara epic Hunter in the Dark, that really encapsulates the
director's artistry and his take on various genres. A young woman sits leaning
over a gravely injured lover. Not to spoil too much about the scene, but it’s a
classic sequence where she begs him to get up, not to die, and he responds in
the well-trodden “go, you need to go” kind of sacrificial statements.
Truthfully, it’s not the best-written scene; it’s carried by two incredibly
strong performances, but then Gosha does what Gosha does. He shoots it while
slowly pulling the camera back, encircling the two characters in their square
of light as the blackness around them grows, slowly shrinking the scene as it
plays out until it's barely a fifth of the screen. By the end of it, it’s two
characters, bared to the truth, both in denial about their respective places,
and they are completely boxed in by the blackness around them.
I cried. Full on, tears down the face, cried.
That’s because Gosha understood the assignment. He almost
always does. While the story of Hunter in the Dark is a fairly
traditional period-piece sword flick, with enough political intrigue to keep
its characters on their toes and action set pieces enough to keep the narrative
pulsating forward towards its inevitable, and often tragic, climax, Gosha
paints it like a Greek tragedy. Fate is an unstoppable force that often devours
all, where no amount of love, loyalty, scheming, or vengeance can stop it.
Sure, the plotting does become a bit convoluted at times with its convenient
use of amnesia for its iconic scar-riddled assassin co-lead, played with
smoldering intensity by Yoshio Harada, or how the film occasionally ends up
fringing into exploitative territory with some of its side characters, but it's
all presented with an artistry and self-seriousness (read as: 70s style gritty
darkness) that elevates all of it.
Enough so that a basic death scene at the end, a staple of
most action filmmaking, utterly and completely destroyed me emotionally.
Still, Hunter in the Dark is remarkably entertaining in its own right, thanks to its layered characters and tragic narrative, and Gosha never hesitates to lean just far enough into the genre to deliver the thrills it needs. The action is incredibly brutal and stylized, with one scene ignited by a shot of a severed hand stuck in the ceiling as it hangs deliriously to the sword embedded in the wood above, and fans of chanbara films will appreciate the late 70s tone to its viciousness even if it always pulls away from the full over-the-top lunacy of films like Lone Wolf and Cub of that era.
It helps that it's a stacked cast, which leans heavily on an
underworld boss, played by the now-late Tatsuya Nakadai in one of those roles
he simply adds hundreds of layers to, to anchor it and elevate the material
right along with Gosha. Sonny Chiba is always an underutilized actor, and even
in his role as Big Bad Villain with Big Bad Screen Presence, he adds a
remarkable amount of heft to the entire film. Yet, it's the women in the film -
Ayumi Ishida, Keiko Kishi, and Kayo Matsuo in particular- that really tend to
be the real VIPs here. Sure, we’ve come to expect the best out of the men
previously mentioned, but these three women add so much depth and texture to
the characters and narrative. Too often in chanbara films, women can be pressed
into either doting lovers or femme fatales, but Hunter in the Dark
manages to make every female character into a true character to stand alongside
their male counterparts, and it, once again, just makes this film soar.
Hunter in the Dark could have been another
paint-by-numbers sword swinging period piece actioner, but Gosha and his team
truly craft something that rises above its tropes into something emotionally
resonant. Its cast is utterly on point, the action is impressively choreographed
and executed, and the artistry with which Gosha plays the chess match of its
narrative just makes this an undervalued epic of the genre.
Now I’m just anxiously awaiting for the Criterion Collection
to release this beast on 4K for my collection so I don’t have to keep
rewatching it on the Criterion Channel.
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